If anyone actually watched the Oilers this year they'd understand. Nurse has been playing his best hockey since the Canadian division.
That's a funny way of saying that he informed Columbus he wouldn't be signing an extension with one season remaining on his contact and would instead, explore his options in becoming a ufa. Plenty of players do that and it's not considered forcing their way out.
It's that. It's also the hater bias against Nurse/Oilers around here and the amount of eyeballs on Nurse in general (being on a premier team featuring McDavid that makes it to the playoffs). Lots of eyes and lots looking to hate on Nurse, even valid comments from within our own fanbase looking for faults. This creates a narrative that he's horrible at hockey. Whereas, who really cares what's going on CBJ or a rebuilding Chicago? The haters are less apparent, the microscope on Jones and his obvious faults never talked about or cared about.
The forcing part came in when he refused to sign a contract anywhere but Chicago…and now he isn‘t happy? Or Chicago thinks they overpaid? What a pity.
Yeah, I think we have different definitions of “forcing your way out”. I’d look at a player who demands a trade as forcing their way out. A player saying they’re going to exercise their right to test the market after their contract is up, is what players do every single year. And I have no idea if he’s happy or not and don’t really care.
I understand the hurt. We invest our emotions in our favorite teams and players and things like that affect us emotionally. Would CBJ be open to bringing him back and has there been talk of it? Would be interesting.
Retaining $4.75 million of dead cap in 2029-30 is pretty wild. Bedard will be 24 then and Alex Vlasic will be 28. Hard to imagine anyone offering that good a haul.
